The very last line of Orson Welles’ film Citizen
Kane is “throw that junk!”. And a knowing audience is witness to the
callous destruction of the sledge “Rosebud”, in which the young Kane had
invested so much simple childhood pleasure - and its obliteration is
representative of the loss of innocence and hopeful young dreams. What may
have seemed unimportant to some, was of significant value to others. And much
associated with film music has, down through the years, been relegated to the
same ruthless and unthinking fate that befell “Rosebud”. Over time,
cost-cutting accountants, anxious for little more than “saving space” have
relegated untold numbers of manuscripts and magnetic masters of film scores to
bonfires and trash cans, until a great deal of our film music heritage has been
eroded away, and with it, a goodly portion of our cherished childhood dreams.

Fortunately some have fought to redress
this imbalance, with pressure and influence staving off the present and future
discarding of film music material, and the revealing and making available of
film music previously left languishing, if not deteriorating, in musty
vaults. But what of that film music already “lost” to us? Happily select
individuals have sought to reconstruct and re-record much of this vanished
treasure trove, each more than anything spurred on a by a healthy nostalgia born
of movies seen and loved in their youth. Of course many scores for the
mainstream films of their day have benefited from this individual enthusiasm –
the big films starring the marquee legends that remain for the most part at the
peak of our movie legacy – but it should never be forgotten that the most
potent of film memories, those most fixed in our minds, are of those films we
frequented when children. And for many kids the bounty of those particular
movies may not have merely been the saccharine or the innocently adventuresome
- but the outlandish fantasy, the spooky horror film or the fanciful science
fiction epic featuring bug-eyed aliens. Often scary stuff!

The record label Monstrous Movie Music (if
ever there was a “giveaway” in a company name this is it!) has springboarded
from the youthful enthusiasms of its founder David Schecter for vintage
fantasy, horror and science fiction films to establish an ongoing schedule of
reconstructing and recording lost scores for these genres, the label single-handedly
re-establishing many musical gems which otherwise would or might have been
denied to us forever as commercial entities. These two latest albums from the
label offer a wonderfully grotesque gallery of formidable musical portraits.

Mighty Joe Young (1949) brings an unfeasibly giant ape from the wilds of Africa to
the confines of an urban American jungle with predictably catastrophic
results. Thankfully though the beast is pacified by the strains of Stephen
Foster’s Beautiful Dreamer – but then, aren’t we all? The studio was
RKO – and they assigned their top composer, the estimable and underrated Roy
Webb, to the wide-ranging task of evoking everything from African and American
locales to obligatory romance to monster mayhem! Webb’s opening stanzas spiced
with exotic percussion conjure Africa in all its raw majesty, but there is also
music of great charm here, delineating the delightfully playful relationship
between the towering ape, Joe Young, and his winsome mistress, Jill, played by
Terri Moore. But via numerous action titles such as Joe RunsAmok
there is necessarily much strum und drang – this is not subtle scoring
- but then music for rampaging giant apes seldom is! This is scoring in a
venerated Hollywood symphonic tradition, and the recording is justly important
in that it restores a score by one of Hollywood’s accepted masters. After
fifty-seven years it was finally worth the wait to be afforded Webb’s striking
music for Mighty Joe Young.

This extensive Roy Webb score would make a
satisfying album in itself – but we are treated to more – lots more. Willis
O’Brien was the effects supremo behind both King Kong and Mighty Joe
Young, and on the latter film he had the able assistance of the young Ray
Harryhausen, soon to emerge as the leading figure in stop-frame animation, and
the remainder of the disc is generously filled with music from early films for
which Harryhausen was creatively involved. 20 Million Miles To Earth
(1957) told the touching tale of a reptilian Venusian creature brought back to
earth as yet unborn in an egg, but following hatching the alien grows at an
astonishing rate, soon identified as a threat and sadly subject to lethal
military might. The Columbia film was produced on a modest budget, with the
musical score mainly resourcefully culled together by music director Mischa
Bakaleinikoff from various compositions already extant in the studio’s library
– and so here we are treated to key cues by Bakeleinikoff augmented by pieces
by Frederick Hollander, David Raksin, David Diamond, George Duning, Werner
Heyman, Max Steiner, Daniele Amfitheotrof – quite a line up – and given that
none of those composers were credited on the film, kudos to producer David
Schecter for identifying all these various cues and their contributors. This
all makes for fascinating listening – not least because these originally
disparate pieces form a cohesive dramatic score under Bakaleinikoff’s
mastery.

Rounding out the disc are two evocative
selections by veteran Hollywood composer Paul Sawtell for the feature
documentary film The Animal World (1956), which was ultimately dominated
by some fearsome dinosaurs courtesy of Ray Harryhausen’s artistry. But just
when you thought it was safe to press “eject” it seems there is one more cue to
enjoy – a piece from Frederick Hollander’s score for the film Here Comes Mr
Jordan, re-utilised as the opening of 20 Million Miles To Earth, but
here presented in its original orchestrations rather than those created by
Bakaleinikoff for the latter film.

One of the most potent and disturbing
images from cinema that haunted my youth was that of the alien creature from
the colourful science fiction opus This Island Earth (1955). Just to
ensure that my nightmares continue into adulthood the second album this month
from Monstrous Movie Music reproduces this disturbing bug-eyed, claw-fisted
creature on its font cover (courtesy of a painting specially commissioned from
Robert Aragon). A substantial thirty-seven minute suite from This Island
Earth, with thrilling and eerie music by Herman Stein, augmented by cues
composed by Hans Salter – and Henry Mancini, no less – comprise the lion’s
share of this enterprising second disc, the music at once a golden template for
Fifties science fiction scoring, running the gamut from the uncanny and the
unnerving to the reassuringly homespun.

The album also treats us to the brief but
wonderfully manic main titles to War Of TheSatellites (1958) by
Walter Greene and the prelude to Ray Harryhausen’s excellent and enterprising EarthVersus The Flying Saucers (1956) composed by an uncredited (on the film)
Daniele Amfitheatrof. But I have to confess a particular penchant for the
album’s final offering – a winning twenty-minute overview of Ron Goodwin’s
music for The Day Of The Triffids (1962). Goodwin was happy to record
themes and suites from his film scores but lamentably never got around to
committing his Triffids music to commercial disc. This seems a pity – as this
music comprises some of his very best and most apt work. The matter has now
been rectified – and in fine style. And what price Goodwin’s main title
music, which comes in like gangbusters – its terse, spiky rhythmic patterns
laced with wailing horns heralding danger. But if I have a favourite moment from
this fantastically atmospheric score, it is in the growling celli and basses
which introduce us to our first Triffid, uprooted and stalking the hot house at
Kew botanical gardens with venomous intent. This music made me shiver! I was
taken back, as I’m sure the album’s producer intended, to that hard cinema seat
in 1962 when I first watched The Day Of the Triffids, and when my
then-girlfriend, confronted by that first sight of a Triffid, suddenly screamed
out loud! Ah … nostalgia!!

As if the bounty of these recordings were
not enough in themselves there is an additional bonus in listening to these
discs for the hardened film music aficionado. Much film music recorded
commercially these days pitches its ensemble into a fairly broad “classical”
acoustic – and whilst this is perfectly legitimate, and can be sonically
rewarding, the fact remains that much film music, and certainly a great deal of
that composed for modestly budgeted films, was originally recorded in quite
intimate acoustics, and ingeniously miked to capture every detail of
orchestration. These new recordings from Monstrous Movie Music seek –
successfully – to replicate the same kind of intimate but infinitely detailed
acoustics that distinguished the original vintage recordings. Consequently
this music sounds “authentic” in more ways than one. The listener is
genuinely transported back to another era, albeit with the added dividend of
digital recording techniques. The sterling performances of the Radio Symphony
Orchestra Of Slovakia under the sure batons of Masatoshi Mitsumoto and Kathleen
Mayne also bring additional veracity to the proceedings.

But I’m sorry – I have to wax even more
lyrical. I know, this is becoming gushing – and I may even get cloying yet -
but praise where praise is due. The CD booklets. Oh yes, the CD booklets!
They are forty pages long! Everything you could ever want to know about the
films, the scores (every recorded cue in detail), the composers and the
recordings is reproduced here – and the tomes are lavishly illustrated too –
photos of the composers, of the recording sessions, of manuscripts – even a
picture of the album’s producer and his wife, the reconstructionist and
conductor Kathleen Mayne, standing amid a field of Triffids! I hope they got
home safely! These booklets are so stupendously annotated that I’m still
reading mine – and its been three weeks already!